


Looking Into You

by melanie1982



Category: Boy Meets World, Full House, Interview With the Vampire, My So Called Life, X Files, Xena - Fandom
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, Feels, Fluff, Longing, M/M, Yearning, hunger, idk - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:41:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25610761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melanie1982/pseuds/melanie1982
Summary: I'm not always great at finishing long fanfics, so this is a bundle of drabbles (a drundle? a babble?)I like my writing. Sometimes other people like it, too. *shrugs*
Relationships: various
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	1. Boy Meets Boy

Boy Meets Boy

"So much can be said in the silence,  
In the spaces between the words,  
In the breath between sentences.."

Shawn commits to memory all that is Cory: the way his hair moves, the little nostril flares he gets when he's angry or frightened, the pattern of his blushes when someone (Shawn, usually) has embarrassed him. 

Shawn has nightmares every night, and often while awake, too, but it is when he sleeps in Cory's room that he finds his greatest respite. Cory always, always falls asleep first, and Shawn needs it that way, for only when Cory is closed-lidded and oblivious can Shawn truly take the measure of the man.

Moonlight is a poor medium, but it will do.

Shawn watches each rise and fall of his friend's chest, every facial twitch, every flutter of eyelashes in dream-sleep.

Sometimes, Cory smiles - innocent, pure, unrestrained. Shawn tells himself that Cory is dreaming of him, only him, and that is why he is so happy.

Shawn commits memories to paper, whatever scraps are available, to be pasted into his journal later. It is a ransom note for his heart, a collage of his madness and sin, a shame of which he will never unburden himself.

At the Matthews' house, even the silence is different. It vibrates with love and safety, with goodness and trust. When Shawn is not there, he aches for that silence.

Even as a child, Shawn knows that he will spend his life traveling the world in search of peace equal to this, and even as a child, Shawn knows that he will never find it.


	2. Many Xenas

Gabrielle is humble, but she bears no false modesty. She knows she is a born bard, and she does not deny her skill.

Her job is to document Xena's victories and hardships, so that the world will always have a record of the great warrior, and Gabrielle is true to her duties.

However, in the odd moment of peace and free time, she also writes for herself.

Someday, Xena will cross the river Styx to stay, or will ascend to some other plane to dwell with the gods, or will simply vanish into the mists of time. There are only so many "last chances" a soul can receive, even one as bright and as determined as Xena's. Perhaps it will be as simple and as horrifying as Xena going her own way, leaving Gabrielle behind. No matter the means, they will be parted, and that, Gabrielle tells herself, is why she pens odes to Xena for her own private library.

There is the Xena which the world knows, the one whom shall belong to history.

Then there is the Xena few have ever seen, and fewer still lived to remember. Warm Xena. Caring Xena. Vulnerable Xena.

Now and then, a change will come over her friend and mentor, and Xena will look into Gabrielle - not at her, but into her. Something will pass between them in those moments, a thing without a name, a transfer of energy which Gabrielle would never find or desire to find with any other. She feels it is a spiritual communion, like the ones the desert mystics pursue, or the followers of Christos preach about - becoming one with something greater than yourself. Two souls, one flesh.

It is a sacred feeling, and the scarcity of it makes it all the more precious. 

What words could she find to describe such an event, to make people understand?

Her words will outlive her, will outlive them both. Time and public opinion may condemn their bond, but by then they will be dust, and what does the dust care of anyone's opinion?

"She looks into me  
And I see  
Myself as she sees:  
Stronger than I am or could ever be.  
I only hope  
That she sees herself  
In my eyes  
As braver than she knows,  
As laughter or pain or kindness  
Make her more beautiful  
Than she could ever believe"

A small part of her, a faint, whispered prayer from her heart, hopes that Xena will untie the scrolls, lay out Gabrielle's heart before her, and begin to read.


	3. My So-Called Secret

"I look for your taste  
In every kiss.  
You are the best  
I've never had"

Rayanne crumpled up the piece of loose-leaf she'd found in the hallway. It was odd, finding it alone on the floor, carelessly abandoned, still pristine amongst the sneaker-scuffs and dust-bunnies. It seemed a shame to sully its purity with her words, but the paper was an effigy, and Rayanne was forever scrawling nonsense across the spotless page that was Angela Chase. 

She uncrumpled it, smoothing it out on the desk. Once you'd creased paper, it could never be fully un-creased. No matter how this bond ended - graduation, or a fight from which they wouldn't recover, or Rayanne's stupid-but-not-surprising death by misadventure - Angela would never be un-Rayanned. There was a twisted sort of gratification in that thought. 

Rayanne chewed her pen, though it was out of nerves rather than her insatiable oral fixation, before adding lines

"You will always bear my ink-marks  
My creases  
My crossed-out words unread"

Life could be so easy, if only Rayanne had the courage to tell her best friend to forget Catalano and all the other boys. They could be together under whatever guise Angela liked; it's not as if being someone's dirty little secret was alien territory for Rayanne. She could save her friend from a world of hurt and risk, if only..

Angela was staring out the window, oblivious to the teacher, and even more oblivious to Rayanne's angst. The poem was going to be burned, but for now, it needed an ending. She considered her words before adding

"I will write my love upon you  
Over and over  
With my life"


	4. A Monster Like Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ***TRIGGER WARNING***
> 
> So, Claudia wants Louis, and this chapter implies her fantasizing about him in a carnal way. Some people find that icky, since she had the eternal body of a child. If the idea of someone who looks like a child but isn't having sexual feelings offends you, please skip this part. If the idea of two vampires who LOOK like kids having sexual interaction offends you, please skip this part. 
> 
> Remember, these characters are not real. It's all pretend. No one is being exploited. I believe adults who are sexual towards kids in real life deserve the harshest punishment imaginable.

Most people do not believe vampires can dream. 

They can, and do - though it is not quite as humans know dreaming. Vampire dreams are rare, very rare, but intensely vivid, to the point of delusion.

It is in dreams that Claudia found her solace.

She was a woman now, in all ways but form and stature. Her inclinations and appetites were powerful, and were just as powerfully suppressed.

For all that he would deny it, and for all the bodies on his conscience, Louis was still, somehow, a gentleman - a veritable innocent compared to his closest companions. There were certain lines which he would never cross, and Claudia both loved and hated him for it.

"We are monsters,  
Yet you can not be.  
My body is a beast  
Which must be fed;  
Your body is a feast -  
Forbidden bread.  
We are monsters,  
Yet I can not be  
Satisfied -  
For, to succour me,  
You would  
An even greater monster be" 

In dreams, Claudia found herself, sometimes mortal, allowed to grow up and mature before taking Louis as her lover. Those dreams were simple enough, a wish fulfillment type of dream.

The other dreams, however, found herself a vampire child without and a woman within. Louis would become a miniature version of himself, a daguerreotype of the boy he must once have been, only arrested in his development by the dark gift.

The eyes were the same; the hair, still long, as was the fashion in his youth. The face, however, would not be so care-worn; there would be no dead brother, no grieving mother and sisters to consider. All would be Claudia, and, for her, all would be Louis.

Those dreams disturbed her, if she had any semblance of morality or conscience left to be disturbed. They looked like children, the pair of them, yet they were not. They acted like adults, but did not appear to be. It was, at times, gentle, and at other times, fierce. She was aware of the mechanics involved, and she intuited the vampiric ability to give and receive pleasure as well as pain, a spectrum far beyond what mortals could imagine. Those dreams were wrong, and yet, they were all she had. He would not debase them with such an act, of that she was certain.

After sundown, as the trio emerged from their respective coffins, Claudia would look at Louis differently, as if scouring for any sign of change in him. He remained himself, as ever, just as she would always be a girl of five, never a woman.

Had she been able, perhaps she would have blushed, wondering if or when Louis would develop the ability to read her thoughts. Lestat, for all his faults, never called her out for her mental indiscretions. 

Perhaps even monsters had their limits.


	5. The Girl Next Door

"How many people say  
You should only date someone  
You'd be friends with?  
If that's good advice,  
Then shouldn't everyone just  
Marry their best friend?"

Kimmy didn't like deep thinking. Thinking was bad enough, but serious stuff? Ugh. 

It gave her headaches, and forehead wrinkles - which, you know, drew more attention to her already-noticeable forehead region.

Sigh.

DJ was everything Kimmy was not - smart, popular, beautiful, wanted... 

She wanted the best of everything for her friend.

DJ loved Steve, and he made her happy.

Kimmy loved seeing DJ happy.

So why, when no one was paying attention, or in quiet, sleepless moments in the dark, did she wish he'd disappear?

Boys were cute. Boys could be fun. Was that enough?

Shouldn't you be with someone who accepted you just as you were, who knew you like you knew yourself, and who cared about you more deeply than most teenaged boys were capable of caring?

Maybe they'd be best friends forever, living as neighbors and raising their respective families. Maybe Steve would fly away on a magic carpet, leaving Kimmy to pick up the pieces. Maybe they'd grow old together as spinsters, with Kimmy never opening her big mouth to spit out the one truth that could potentially ruin the best thing in her life.

Kimmy wasn't sure. All she knew was that she would never find anybody who made her feel safe and loved like DJ, and that she'd never let herself end up with anyone whom she wouldn't have as a friend.


	6. A Heart Full Of Scorpions

Dana Scully was not immune to romance, per se, but she was very cautious and analytical. If love was a frog, Dana was prone to dissecting it with scalpels and tweezers, trying to learn how it all fit together, and how one part affected another. 

Mulder, however, was the type to play with the dead frog, making it sing, using his fingers to propel the legs in a macabre dance, or to simply hold it and gaze upon it, feeling the different tactile sensations of its slimy skin, its weight, its suppleness or rigidity. He was the type to let love have its way with less forethought, and without needing to know every little thing before jumping in.

There had to be a middle ground - but where?

He had his deeper side, of course. Mulder the metaphysicist, the dreamer, the poet. He wrote for himself, never showing anyone else; it wasn't that he feared Dana mocking him, but it just didn't ever seem the right time. "Wanna read my poetry?" felt like such a pretentious pick-up line.

No matter how it began, his poetry always circled back to her.

"I thirst for her  
Like a man lost in the desert.  
With just a word,  
She can wound, even kill.  
Still I long for her pursuit.."  
\  
\-----------------------------------------

They'd been briefed on a string of mysterious deaths in Egypt, one of the deceased being the son of a US consul. Dana had argued that Egypt was hardly the FBI's jurisdiction, even for an X File; Mulder was just jazzed to get a free trip to poke around the pyramids. Their flight left in the morning, each agent already forming a bias one way or the other on the likelihood that there was a 'supernatural' aspect to the deaths.

Dana, awakened from a bizarre nightmare, jotted something down on her bedside blotter. When she awoke, Dana had little memory of the dream, and even less recall of having written anything down before sinking back into oblivion.

In the nightmare, Dana had been chasing someone through the desert, not in anger, but in true pursuit. The man would not slow down or look back over his shoulder, but neither did he speed up and evade her completely. It was as if he wanted her to pursue him, and he was the one who would decide if and when she captured him.

At last, his camel came to a stop under the shade of a cluster of trees. Dana pressed on, reaching the oasis at last, lungs burning with the sand and the desert air. 

He turned to face her, offering her water, and she opened her mouth to speak.

That's when everything went horribly wrong.

Instead of words, a scorpion came out of her mouth, scuttled down the length of her arm, and stung the man's hand as he held out a cup of water. Soon an avalanche of scorpions rushed forth, consuming the man, leaving nothing but bones.

On the way to the airport, Dana puzzled over her note, a simple string of four words.

As the pair de-planed, Dana's carry-on was knocked out of her hands by a pushy passenger. Mulder picked it up, and a single scrap of paper fell out. 

On it were the words, "Heart full of scorpions"

and nothing more.

Mulder handed the piece of paper to his partner, each of them holding onto one edge of it for a moment, linked by the note.

Dana felt a strange chill, Mulder arching a brow.

The truth is out there?


End file.
